Abnormal exam 1

What makes defining abnormality difficult?

Defining abnormal behavior is subjective to societal and cultural norms. Theres no one behavior that is deemed abnormal.

What are the elements or criteria to determine abnormality

-Subjective distress
-Maladaptiveness
-Statistical Deviancy
-Violation of the standards of society
-Social discomfort
-Irrationality and unpredictability

Brett persistently injects himself with pain killers. This has greatly increased his chance of overdosing and dying. His behavior harms no one else. According to the DSM-5, is Brett's behavior consistent with the definition of a mental disorder?

Repetitive behavior of using a substance results to substance use disorder.

According to the DSM, when is deviant behavior viewed as indicative of a mental disorder?

Dysfunctional behavior from the individual

What is the utility of the DSM-5

To properly diagnose mental disorders that meet criteria of dysfunctional behavior and diagnosis(es) can be used in the further research of mental disorders

Which concept provides psychologists with a consistent naming system that can be used to organize and identify information in a helpful manner?

Classification of the given disorder

What is a disadvantage of having a classification system for mental disorders?

Patients may play out expectation of their "role", labels are prioritized to only capture a behavioral pattern, can also create stigmas

Maria believes that her dead grandmother occasionally speaks to her. In deciding if Maria has a mental illness or not, which of the following should first be evaluated?

Are Maria's beliefs consistent with the beliefs of her culture

What is epidemiology?

the branch of medicine that deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health.

What is the most prevalent psychological disorder among adults in the U.S?

Anxiety disorder

Why is it important to have some understanding of what causes a psychological disorder?

helps professionals diagnose for treatment

Why is it dangerous to make conclusions based on case studies?

Conclusions have low generalizability (cant be used to draw conclusions about other cases)

Why is a representative sample desirable?

The more representative a sample is, the more generalizable the data.

What is a good control group for a research study on people with eating disorders?

People who don't have the disorder but who are otherwise comparable to the criterion group

Early writings show that the Chinese, Egyptians, Hebrews, and Greeks often attributed abnormal behavior to ________

Demons and demonic possession

Hippocrates doctrine of the four humors was meant to explain what?

One's temperament being determined by an imbalance led to certain sicknesses dependent upon which humours were in excess or defecit

What is Galen credited with?

Recognizing that psychological disorders could have both biological and psychological causes

The approaches to treatment of the mentally ill during the Middle Ages in Europe are best characterized as

exorcisms and poorly understood medical treatments, devoid of scientific approach

Johann Weyer, in the early 1500s provided what to help understand abnormal behavior?

A book arguing witches were actually mentally ill

If you visited an asylum in the 16th Century in Europe you would likely find ________

Filthy living conditions, cruel treatment of residents

Philippe Pinel was known for what?

A french physician in 1792 removed chains from mental patients with positive results- showed benefit of treating them as sick people, not beasts or criminals.

Moral managment treatment focused on what

Focused on the treatment on patients' social, individual, and occupational needs and moral/spiritual development )

What discovery resulted in the rise of the mental hygiene movement and the occurrence of biomedical advances

Pinel & Turk's humanitarian experiments

What early findings are recognized as a major biomedical breakthrough in psychopathology because it established the link between mental and physical illnesses? 

The discovery of the cause and cure of syphilitic insanity

The first modern classification of mental disorders involved

recognizing symptoms that occurred together often enough to be regarded as a type of mental disorder

The Nancy School was critical for conceptualizing mental disorders because it

Advanced the recognition of psychological factors that were involved in the development of mental disorders

In 1893, Breuer and Freud published a paper on hysteria, in it they announced that

Unconscious factors can determine behavior and produce mental disorders

The emergence of Behaviorism was critical because it provided

A heavy emphasis on the role of the social environment in conditioning personality development and behavior, both normal and abnormal

A psychologist who takes a behavioral perspective would focus on

learning and observable behaviors

The central principle of classical conditioning is that

after repeated pairings with a stimulus that naturally causes a response, a neutral stimulus will cause a similar response

There are different types of etiologies (i.e., causes) in abnormal psychology. for instance having a gene for Parkinson’s disease guarantees that Parkinson’s disease will develop, but this is not the only factor that can lead to Parkinson’s disease. The presence of the gene is a ______ , but not a ______.

for sufficient cause; necessary cause

Parkinson's disease guarantees that Parkinson's disease will develop, but this is not the only factor that can lead to Parkinson's disease. The presence of a gene is

a sufficient cause but not a necessary cause

Diathesis can be defined as what type of casual factor

Vulnerability, stressor (something that happens that plays upon the vulnerability to the disease)

A couple is in counseling. She states that she drinks because he rejects her. He states that he rejects her because she drinks. It appears that in this example of bi-directionality.

Environmental, behavioral, neural and genetic factors all have influence on each other within activity. Drinking and rejection influence and maintain each other

Suppose that low self-esteem is a diathesis for developing depression later in life. This means that

People with low self-esteem have a predisposition for developing depression

When psychologists say that a person shows resilience it means

they have the ability to successfully adapt to very difficult circumstances

What do different viewpoints abnormal behavior provide?

They help professionals organize observations; provide systems of thought; suggest areas of focus

The disorders first recognized as having biological bases are best characterized as disorders that

involved significant damage to brain tissue

Norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin and GABAA are all

Neurotransmitters that regulate mood

Suppose the re uptake of a specific neurotransmitter were deficient and the deactivation enzymes associated with the neurotransmitter were also deficient. What effect would this have?

There would be more of the neurotransmitter in the synapse

Cortisol is a hormone that

Regulates a wide range of processes throughout the body, including metabolism and the immune response. It also has a very important role in helping the body respond to stress.

When examining hereditary, mental disorders are almost always

inherited by behavior genetics

. Genes and environment can interact or be correlated. Highly coordinated children are picked out at an early age by coaches and given special opportunities to excel at sports. Extraverted children seek out social situations and become comfortable with strangers. Both of these phenomena illustrate

Genotype-environment correlations

John Bowlby's attachment theory emphasized

The importance of a secure and trusting mother-infant body on development and well-being

Primitive defense mechanisms do not generally work because they

They do not solve the problem causing the reaction (i.e. denial avoidance, projection)

After being bitten by a dog, Jose finds that he feels afraid whenever he sees a dog. In classical conditioning terms, the dog can be described as an

conditioned stimulus

Due to ____ we can learn from the experiences of others

observational learning

cognitive-behavioral psychologists believe that abnormal behavior

results from distorted thinking and information processing

schemas are/are not important in cognitive psychology because they

they are important in cognitive behavioral perspectives

children raised in orphanages tend to have what biological characteristics

less cortical gray matter than those children raised by their parents; tend to be lethargic and low in IQ

Which parenting style is characterized by warmth, control and communication

Authoritative

Studies on the cultural differences in parental tolerance of under- or over-controlled behavior suggest that ________

these different styles can produce different rates of problem behaviors in different cultures

psychological assessment refers to the

procedures used to summarize a client's problem

The use of standardized psychological tests help to compare people because

it offers a normative sample for compensation; permits the clinician to determine how a patient's behavior compares to some reference group

Ed has suffered a head injury in a car accident. He is referred to a psychologist to see what types of impairment now exist and to get some suggestions for treatment. The best assessments strategy would be

neurophysiological tests

The MMPI is

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. It assesses personality traits and psychopathology

One criticism of diagnostic labels is that

they can influence both other people's and the diagnosed person's perception of themselves in negative ways.

The term "stress" is used in the text to refer to

The effects of external stressors within the organism

What do positive and negative stressors have in common

Both effect one's resources and coping skills

What factors are linked to a person's ability to cope better?

Social support

What is the name of the system that is designed to mobilize resources and prepare a fight-or-flight response?

SAM Sympathetic-Adrenomedullary system

Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of the interaction between the

interactions between the nervous system and the immune system.

What factor(s) can cause stress-induced immunosuppression?

Gluccorticoids

Fear is a basic emotion that involves

the activation of the "fight or flight" response.

A helpful way to tell someone is having a panic attack rather than just a state of fear is

if they have a subjective belief that something awful is about to happen

What is one of the major ways the anxiety disorders differ from each other?

whether there are more fear/panic symptoms of anxiety involved

Gradual exposure to feared cues is used to treat?

A common component of treatment for all anxiety disorders

It is fairly easy to condition monkeys and humans to fear snakes but almost impossible to condition either to fear a flower.

prepardness theory of phobias

What finding provides evidence against a role for inherited factors in the development of phobias

Impact of non-shared environmental factors

Kayla has just started college and wants to make friends. She refuses to go to large parties because she is afraid that she will blush and sweat, and that other people will laugh at her. She is fine when talking to people in one-on-one settings. Kayla's most likely diagnosis is

social phobia

cognitive approaches to social phobia focus on

challenging automatic thoughts

Compared to anxiety, panic is

more intense

anxiety sensitivity

a personality trait involving a high level of belief that certain bodily symptoms may have harmful consequences

Amber feels anxious almost all the time. She finds herself worrying that her husband will leave her (although he has never shown any indication that he would), that she chose the wrong job, that her children might not be safe at their school, and that she might get sick and leave her family in financial ruin. She calls her husband almost every day to find out when he will be home. She complains to her physician that she is always tired but cannot sleep or relax. Amber's most likely diagnosis is

generalized anxiety disorder

what have the studies of control in humans and monkeys provided support for?

early experiences may serve as protective factors, decreasing the likelihood of developing GAD